Two consecutive earthquakes shattered the glorious historic centre of Patan in 2015. It took seven years and hundreds of devoted craftsmen and women to bring it back to its original mission, to connect people. Claire Burkert and Thomas Kelly carefully portrayed those who made this miracle work. Their story reads like a book.
“I don’t view the aftermath of the earthquake in only negative ways—there are also positive outcomes,” reflects Rohit Ranjitkar. He is the director of the Kathmandu Valley Preservation Trust (KVPT), a not-for-profit organization that has worked on the Patan Durbar Square for three decades. Following the powerful 7.8 magnitude earthquake that struck Nepal in 2015, KVPT has been busy restoring most of the square’s valuable historic monuments.
I meet Rohit in a workshop where woodworkers are repairing old carved temple columns and windows. “What could be positive about the effects of an earthquake!” I exclaim.
“Before the first earthquake on April 25th, a lot of people did not value the heritage that they saw around them each day. When the temples collapsed, they suddenly had no place to worship. Hundreds of people came out to collect and protect the remnants of temples. They recognized their value. It is in this way that the earthquake brought intangible and tangible heritage together.”
Rohit introduces me to Ravi Darshandari, previously a tourist guide, who is now head of the square’s local development association. Immediately after the earthquake Ravi ran to the square to bring the toppled Yoganarendra statue, dating from 1683, into the Keshav Narayan Chowk palace for safety. Local people guarded the area for two nights and two days to keep statues and temple pieces safe from theft until the army and police arrived. “The earthquake brought people together,” Rohit tells me. “Their awakened understanding about the value of these monuments left an enduring message for the general public.”
Damage and despair
How well I remember the valley’s second major earthquake on May 12th, when my husband Thomas Schrom and I huddled with other staff members of the Kathmandu Valley Preservation Trust in the café of the Patan Museum. In the early 90s Thomas had been a member of the professional Austrian team who had transformed the Keshav Narayan Chowk into the world-renowned Patan Museum, which exhibits Buddhist and Hindu antiquities. The Patan Museum was like a home to us and the people who had worked on it, an extended family. We looked up to the tilting pinnacle of the northern Degutale temple, wondering what further other damage the Patan Durbar had suffered. The earthquakes’ toll on people, animals and architecture left us in despair.
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